Moist Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

Cake:

• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup powdered white sugar
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup buttermilk (or substitute by putting 1/2 tbsp white vinegar in a cup then filling it half up with milk; let stand 5 minutes until thickened)
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 1/2 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup hot coffee  

Fluffy Chocolate Frosting:

(Mix the following ingredients in the stand mixer and let a thick frosting form)

• 4 oz unsalted butter
• 4 oz unsweetened cocoa powder
• 4 oz powdered sugar
• 2 oz whipping cream
• 4 oz sweetened dark chocolate(melted)

How To Go About It

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Flour and grease your baking tin.
• In the stand mixer add all the ingredients(except coffee) and mix until a smooth batter forms.
• Stir in the hot coffee with a spatula.
• Pour the batter in the tin and set to bake.
• Bake until the knife comes out clean with just a few crumbs.
• Let the cake cool in a fridge for half an hour.
• Smother the cake in fluffy chocolate frosting.

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Barely Chocolate Pound Cake

Mom had her morning cup of tea in her hand today. She looked a little wistfully at her cup and said,” I should have picked up a cake from the bakery yesterday “. “Why mom? You just have to ask me and I’ll bake one”, I replied in my best chirpy, good Samaritan voice. “No chocolate?” She asks. “No chocolate”, I promise. Mom doesn’t have the time to bake herself, so all the baking in my house is done by me. Since my sisters don’t move their lazy butts to the kitchen. Anyway, I did bake a cake. And it had just two tablespoons of cocoa powder. That’s not really chocolate, just a food color sort of addition. And the chocolate ganache drizzled over the cake was on the cake and not in it. So that again, wouldn’t make it a chocolate cake. “This is brown, Ayesha”, mom sighs. “Mom, it’s not chocolate…errr….just barely chocolate”.

What You need(Cake)

• 2 sticks unsalted butter
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 4 large eggs
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup buttermilk 
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder

How to go about (Cake):

• Preheat oven at 350 degrees.Flour and grease the baking pan.
• Add the dry ingredients in one bowl. Sift these.Set aside.
• Add eggs, buttermilk, butter and vanilla essence in another bowl. Whisk them.
• Whisk all the ingredients in a single bowl.
• Pour in the mixture and set to bake.

Ganache For Drizzling

• Add 3 oz dark chocolate in a microwavable bowl. Let this melt in a microwave. Remove this bowl from the microwave and immediately add 2 tbsp butter. Mix this mixture with a spoon. Drizzle over the cake.

Chocolate Crime Scene Cake!

Hello ladies and gentlemen, this is what the incurable Ayesha did today. Right after she got up from flu she went sniffing into the kitchen. Like a mouse, or perhaps an ant she was instantly attracted to the box of  dark chocolate on the kitchen rack. Ayesha forgot that she had been ill. She usually forgets things when faced with chocolate. After all what good is chocolate inside a box? Therefore Ayesha instantly went to work to bring that chocolate out of the box. Her mother was not at home and therefore had no idea that her miserable daughter was thieving in her own home. When the mother came back she didn’t see any chocolate. Not even the empty box. After all Ayesha is a hardened criminal and leaves no traces. This is what Ayesha did with chocolate!

Ingredients For Cake(6.5 inches):

• 4 eggs
• 6 oz brown sugar
• 4 oz cake flour
• 0.5 oz baking powder
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder

Now you will notice that this contains no milk and no butter . Since we are going to use a lot of cream in topping and layering, fat and milk inside of cake would make cake heavy. Right now, its just perfectly moist and light and we want it this way!

How to Go About-Cake

• Preheat oven at 350 degrees.
• Put eggs and sugar in a bowl and whisk till thick and fluffy.
• Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl and sift.
• Add dry ingredients and add i tbsp at a time while constantly whisking.
• You have a thick batter now. Pour into  greased and floured baking pan.
• Bake till set. Slide the knife into cake and see if it comes out clean.

Ingredients for Chocolate Cream Topping

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 6 tbsp powdered sugar
• 3 oz  sweet dark chocolate melted
• 9 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• Dark chocolate chips

How to Go About Topping

• Place your whisking bowl and whipping head in freezer for 20 minutes before you begin.This will help your topping be firm.
• In a stand mixer(or otherwise) whisk cream and sugar on low speed.
• increase speed as you add cocoa powder..
• Add dark chocolate and keep on whisking.
• Now you have a thick topping with you.

Lastly

• Make sugar water with 1/2 cup sugar and 10 tbsp water.
• Cut cake into three thick round slices.
• Apply sugar water on top of each layer.This will hold all three parts of cake together. It acts as glue.
• Beginning with the first layer, apply topping as desired on all three layers.
• Sprinkle dark chocolate Chips.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 TO ALL OF YOU! HUGS,LOVE…AND FANTASTIC LIVES AHEAD.

Its a big world, and there’s a lot of sadness. Are we playing are part and spreading joy?

Listen, we continue to be despite all predictions of world ending. Isn’t this a chance and an opportunity to make amendments? Its a new sun and a new day. Let’s be what we couldn’t before 🙂 🙂 🙂

Dark Chocolate-Cherry Custard Cake (kitchensmitten.wordpress.com)

The Chocolate ‘Moo’ Cake

      Cows are lovely creatures. Innocent,dewy eyed and beautiful….. And really, who am I kidding? They are pretty dangerous as well. Our Punjabi maid comes from  the farming and animal rearing region of Punjab. In fact, she and her family used to reside on the farm. She used to take cows out for galloping and feeding in the fields. There are countless stories of cows breaking free of the rope and running away. My maid sometimes singlehandedly and sometimes with a group of other people used to get the cow back from where ever it chose to hide. And now moving from cows to………well yes…the cake. The cows were the inspiration for this cake.The Lovely Chocolate ‘Moo’ Cake.

What You Need:

• A Chocolate Cake- Use any recipe you like.I used the one I have taken ages perfecting.Find it here.
• Oreo Cookies
• White Chocolate
• Whipped Cream
• Milk Chocolate
• Chocolate Chips

I made three of these on all the three shapes. Demonstrating on the cylinder.

Soak 10-12 Oreos in milk ,depending on the size of the cake.

 

Soak for about two minutes.We don’t want an Oreo milkshake.Just soggy Oreos.

Melt white Chocolate.Mix it into whipped cream and drizzle over cake.

Last Step. Melt milk chocolate and put dollops over the cake. Sprinkle chocolate chips. 

Lastly A BIG thanks  to MISS MOO for being an inspiration for the cake.You rock Miss Moo, like totally.Thanks to your awesome system I got the milk and the chocolate. 

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/12/30/daily-prompt-brainwave/

Coffee-Walnut Crumb Cake!

             I am an Asian  teenager for whom South Africa is another planet and Nelson Mandela is the man I see sometimes on television,sometimes online, sometimes in newspapers. So before  I began writing this post, I was asking myself, “Do I have the right to say something about this man?”. Because  all my life I have been a carefree soul. And have never really delved deep into thought provoking matters.I’m a self professed basic, not a poet. Yet I am writing about a man who went ahead to change many lives by the mercy of Almighty God. A man who fought matters of race, of freedom, of  peace, of poverty and most important of all…of humanity.A man who thought, dreamed and did, rather than stay confined into his own  little selfish world like I do. From early childhood I remember hearing , “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.” Today I found out it was piece of wisdom delivered by Nelson Mandela,that had crept slowly into my  house and hugely shaped the person I’ve now become. Resentment is the last thing that will ever come to me, because the idea of it being a poison has deeply sunk into my roots. I’ve seen people ruin themselves through resentment, wallowing in it until it  swallows them completely. I realized that it is a gift that he has given me, and to all of those who dared to listen and to learn. For those who loved him should not cry, because he lived a life of substance unlike many. A man who was truly worthy of being called a man. A man who shall live after death in the minds and hearts of many.

How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world”.
William Shakespeare 

 

Blog’s One Month Anniversary and Coffee-Walnut Crumb Cake

It’s my blog’s one month anniversary today. That is, if there something like a one month anniversary. Well,anyway I made some bittersweet coffee and walnut crumb cake for today. A bittersweet cake for a bittersweet day. It was soft, crumby and melt-in-the-mouth delicious. It has been a good one month of blogging. My perspective on food has already begun to change. I’ve began to look at it as a work of art rather than just a ‘thing’ to feed my growling tummy. The bloggers I’ve begun to get familiar with have been very kind and so have been the visitors. But all along I’ve never lost sight of why I made this blog. It was accidentally made, not intentionally.I blog for the love of food, rather than food for the love of blogging. Will never forget this, InshaAllah!

Ingredients:

• 1 Tablespoon flour, for coating the pan
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup + 2 Tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 10 Tablespoons (1 and 1/4 stick) unsalted butter, lightly softened at room temp
  
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup buttermilk, see how to
• 1 large egg, at room temperature*
• 1/4 cup strongly brewed coffee
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/3 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously grease  a spring-form pan with butter. Sprinkle the bottom of the pan with 1 Tablespoon of flour and tap out the excess.
2. Whisk the flour, sugar, and salt together in a large mixing bowl until combined. Cut in the butter in very small pieces. Whisk around with a whisk or mix with a fork until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Set aside 1 cup of the flour mixture.
3. Mix the baking powder and baking soda into the remaining flour mixture. Add the room temperature buttermilk, coffee,egg, and vanilla – you may want to do this with a mixer. The batter is very, very thick. Vigorously mix everything together until the batter is smooth, fluffy, and resembles frosting – about 2 full minutes. Spoon the batter into the prepared spring-form pan, smoothing the top.
4. Add the brown sugar, chopped walnuts and cinnamon to the reserved flour mixture. Toss with a fork until well blended. Sprinkle the crumbs over the batter, pressingly lightly so they stick. Bake the cake until the center is firm and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean – 45-55 minutes. Mine took 55 minutes. Allow to cool for 10 minutes( or 5 minutes in fridge), then remove the sides of the spring-form pan and allow cake to cool completely before serving (about 2 hours).

 

 

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Dark Chocolate Custard Cake

“The greatest tragedies were written by the Greeks and Shakespeare…neither knew chocolate.” ― Sandra Boynton

When I was a kid  mom  used to make lovely vanilla custard cakes for me and my sisters,I loved them but I loved chocolate more. Then I grew up, and baking chocolate cakes became an obsession. Recently me ,my sisters and mother  were having a “remember when…”, when the topic of her vanilla custard cakes came along. They all  looked so wistful 😛 that I decided to bake them custard cakes but…chocolate ones. The rest is history. They loved this cake so much, and every one wanted to know the recipe. Even my mom admits that this is better than her vanilla custard cakes (And that for her is a big thing to admit 😛 )

Ingredients ( For 2 small or one Large cake):

1/2 cup  unsalted butter

2 1/2 cup milk

1 cup flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

4 eggs ( whites and yolks in separate bowls)

1/4  tsp vinegar

1 3/4 cup confectioners sugar

A pinch of baking powder

2 tbl spoons strongly brewed coffee

1 tsp vanilla extract

Cherries for decorating

Chocolate ganache for icing

(For Chocolate ganache Put a large pan with water boiling in it. Put a smaller pan over the boiling water. In the smaller pan add a stick of unsalted butter. Add 6 ounces semi-sweet dark chocolate or Milk chocolate. Let the butter and chocolate melt. Stir regularly.Put this in a fridge to cool)

How to go about it:

1. Preheat the oven. Butter and flour your baking dish.
2. Melt butter and set aside. Heat  the milk and set aside so it gets lukewarm.
3. In a seperate bowl whisk together the flour,pinch of baking powder and cocoa powder -set this aside
4. Whip the egg whites to form stiff peaks-set this aside.
5. Beat egg yolks and sugar until light.Beat in the melted butter,espresso,vinegar and vanilla extract for about 3 minutes.
6. Mix flour/ cocoa into the batter.
7. Whisk in the milk. Make sure all the ingredients get well-incorporated.
8. Fold in the egg whites 1/3 at a time. Keep repeating until all eggs are folded in.
9. Pour the batter into your prepared baking dish.
10. Bake for around 50-60 min. The cake should be jiggly but firm( Not wet. To check this, slide a knife into the cake. If it comes out dry, your cake is done )
11. Let your cake cool in the fridge for a while.
12. Decorate it with chocolate ganache and cherries.

Have an amazing Baking Time.

Enjoy your cake and complements from friends & Family 😀